Research
MOTIVATION AND THE LIMITS OF EMPATHY
One of the primary topics of study in the EMP Lab is empathy: the ability to vicariously resonate with and share the experiences and feelings of others.
The EMP Lab examines when and why people feel and behave empathically toward others. This line of research is united by the framework that empathy is often a motivated choice: many apparent limitations of empathy may result from how people strategically weigh its costs and benefits. This research focuses on motivational factors that cause people to either down-regulate or up-regulate empathy, as well as emotion regulation mechanisms (e.g., reappraisal, situation selection) that shape empathic outcomes. How do shared empathetic feelings and compassion wax and wane in response to large-scale events (such as pandemics, wars, and disasters), and what role do people play in actively turning those feelings up or down? We are interested in understanding the cognitive factors that might also predispose people to be more curious, open, and creative within their empathizing as well.
RELATED PUBLICATIONS
Anderson, S., Cameron, C. D., & Beaty, R. E. (2025).
Creative empathy. Creativity Research Journal.
Anderson & Cameron (2023)
How the self guides empathy choice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Cameron et al. (2022)
Motivated empathic choices. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology.
Scheffer, Cameron, & Inzlicht (2022)
Caring is costly: People avoid the cognitive work of compassion. JEP: General.
Cameron et al. (2019)
Empathy is hard work: People choose to avoid empathy because of its cognitive costs. JEP: General.
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EMPATHY AND THE MORAL CIRCLE
How do we cultivate empathy and moral concern expansively, such as in cases of moral disagreement, or when dealing with non-human animals or artificial intelligence (e.g., robots, chatbots)?
Much of our work focuses on challenging cases of empathy, such as with targets that might seem more far removed. Cultivating empathy and compassion for distant others may be more difficult, especially in cases of conflict, and in cases where targets of concern seem distant from more familiar human experience (as with animals and robots). We have several projects that examine how people choose to empathize across divides of various kinds, such as in cases of political and moral disagreement. Is empathizing with distant or difficult targets more effortful and challenging? Or might it be more rewarding and inspiring curiosity in some cases? Most recently, we have been examining how people choose to engage in empathizing with different kinds of animals, and with different kinds of artificial intelligence (such as robots and chatbots). These interdisciplinary projects (in collaboration with philosophy, rural sociology, engineering) push to understand how we actively expand or constrict the fringes of the moral circle, regulating moral emotions based on values and goals.
RELATED PUBLICATIONS
Cameron, C. D., Wagner, A. R., Orlandi, M., et al. (accepted).
Empathy for and from embodied robots: An interdisciplinary review. Current Directions in Psychological Science.
Cameron, C. D., & Orlandi, M. (2025).
Motivated empathy and affective polarization: Current findings and ethical implications. In S. Laham (Ed.), Handbook of Ethics and Social Psychology.
Inzlicht, M., Cameron, C. D., D’Cruz, J., & Bloom, P. (2024).
In praise of empathic AI. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Swim, J. K., Guerriero, J., Lengieza, M. L., & Cameron, C. D. (2023).
The effects of stereotypes about animals’ competence and warmth on empathy choice. Anthrozoös.
Cameron, C. D., Lengieza, M. L., Hadjiandreou, E., Swim, J. K., & Chiles, R. M. (2022).
Empathic choices for animals versus humans: The role of choice context and perceived cost. The Journal of Social Psychology.
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AFFECTIVE DYNAMICS OF MORAL JUDGMENT
When we decide whether an action is morally right or wrong, or whether a person deserves punishment and blame, are we driven by the heart or the head?
The answer to this question, which traces from Plato through Hume to the present day, turns out to be both. Emotions are multifaceted and complex phenomena, built from concepts, core affect, and the situations around us. Paying attention to how we construct our own emotional experiences can advance our knowledge about how we manage their moral lives. We have applied constructionist models of the mind to understand the relationship between affect, emotions, and moral judgment. This constructionist perspective is novel for the field of moral psychology because it challenges assumptions about emotions and moral domains as natural kinds, and instead suggests examining how domain-general mechanisms of affect, attention, and conceptual knowledge interact to shape moral decision-making. In recent years, we have been particularly interested in moral outrage as an emotion in response to moral transgressions, and the ways in which people might be motivated to up- or down-regulate it in order to effect collective action on their moral beliefs.
RELATED PUBLICATIONS
Yalcin & Cameron (2025)
Outrage is motivated and nuanced. Science e-letter.
Hadjiandreou & Cameron (2022)
Adversity-based identities drive social change. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Bambrah, Cameron, & Inzlicht (2022)
Outrage fatigue? Cognitive costs and decisions to blame. Motivation and Emotion.
Spring, Cameron, & Cikara (2019)
The upside of outrage. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Cameron, Lindquist, & Gray (2015)
A constructionist review of morality and emotions: No evidence for specific links between moral content and discrete emotions. Personality and Social Psychology Review.